Rapper David Banner will visit MTSU on Thursday, Feb. 28, to serve as keynote speaker to culminate the university’s Black History Month activities.

Banner has enjoyed a successful career as a recording artist in the years following the release of his popular Mississippi album in 2003.

“The featured Black History Month keynote event is the pinnacle of MTSU’s 2019 Black History Month Calendar of Events,” according to promotion of the event on mtsu.edu.

Banner encourages his listeners to pump your black fist, and he also sings of murdering Uncle Toms, I’m crunk like I’m Lil’ John in his track “Bloody War.”

Among his other other statements on race relations: I ain’t African, I’m Ethiopian, Put some royal seeds in her fallopian.

And in the song “Elvis” he lays out his claim that white folks steal the music of black artists.

Lord don’t let them take hip-hop like they took rock ’n’ roll, Banner says.

Em said he a God, Miley out here twerking
I walked in Def Jam, wasn’t no black folks working
Soul is Robin Thicke, Adele’s that too
Justin Timberlake is what Usher’s supposed to do
But that’s . . . just like Elvis

“The MTSU Distinguished Lecture Committee seeks to elevate the campus dialogue on important current events,” its website says. “Preference will be given to funding the appearance of well-known speakers who can bring educational excellence to our campus.”

They have found their man in Banner, who enjoys diamonds on my pinky . . . syrup fallin’ in my cup . . . a freak on my arm . . . pistol in my hand, according to his track “Get Like Me.”

In this time of tense race relations and heated political debate, the MTSU committees must feel like Banner has the distinguished message to bring justice, unity and a better society.

My shoulder hold a AK that holds enough shots / To let enough cops know that I ain’t going out without a fight, according to Banner’s song “My Uzi,” quite possibly inspired by the revered legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself.

Other philosophical musings in Banner’s music include: put your middle finger up, and scream ‘f*** you hoes.’

The artist frequently speaks of his encounters with various bitches, hoes, freaks and strippers, and his own anatomy in vivid detail throughout his illustrious career in education and social justice, and has somehow positioned himself as a man of distinction who has earned university speaking engagements after a career of spewing what many interpret as hate speech.

Anyway, thug hip-hop culture—and its perpetuation of the ideas that acquiring Gucci, diamonds, large wheels, syrup, Uzis and dollar bills is somehow a noble thing, that women are merely hoes and another object that can be acquired, that any person in today’s America is somehow a victim because of something that may or may not have happened four or five generations ago, and its message of anger, entitlement and divisiveness—is far more detrimental and threatening to the youth in our society than are the police, politicians, the criminal justice system or white people in general.

If you’d like to hear Banner’s perspective, the Distinguished Lecture will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28, in the MTSU Student Union Ballroom.